Entertainment

Americans Don't Want Political Facebook Ad Targeting

Several political tech and data firms on the right, left and in between are introducing new ways to target digital ads to voters this election season. And while there are no signs of campaigns slowing their use of your social media profile data, a lot of users simply don't want them.

A new study from the Annenberg School for Communications found that 85% of Americans surveyed would be "angry" if they discovered Facebook was serving ads for political candidates based on their profile information. But political advertisers commonly do just that, targeting Facebook ads to people who like certain political organizations or candidates or express other interests that might align with a candidate's stance on an issue. Corporate brands do this, too.

Facebook Sponsored Stories ads for political candidates elicit an even higher level of disdain. Seventy percent of people surveyed said they would be less likely to support a candidate if they found out a campaign targeted ads to friends of people who like a candidate. But Facebook's Sponsored Stories ad format allows for this exact scenario.

For instance, if someone's Facebook friend likes Mitt Romney on Facebook, that someone is likely to see a Sponsored Story for Mitt Romney that displays the fact that the friend liked the candidate. Other ad formats from Facebook similarly show that a friend has liked a candidate or brand.

Eighty-six percent of Americans surveyed said they don't want political campaigns to customize messages based on their interests. Again, this has become a de facto approach to the way political advertisers use online advertising, particularly on Facebook.

If a Facebook user, for example, shows an interest in gay rights issues by liking related organizations, chances are he might have been served an Obama for America Facebook ad in 2011 with a message focused on marriage equality: "President Obama supports repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. Add your support now!" stated a Facebook ad from the President's reelection campaign that appeared to be targeted to people who liked left-leaning groups on Facebook, including gay rights-related groups.

Many political campaigns, including Obama's and Romney's, also target ads to people across the web through ad networks if they have previously visited their official campaign sites. This simple form of behavioral targeting is called retargeting.

Targeted Victory, a Republican digital consulting company, has spent the last four years building up its own data, creating online voter segments for targeted online ad campaigns.

Just yesterday online ad firm Intermarkets revealed its partnership with Lotame, a company that works closely with Targeted Victory, to build online ad audience segments to target based on data from veteran political data firm Aristotle.

Today, a data and tech firm on the Democratic side, NGP VAN, enhanced its platform allowing candidate campaigns to connect Facebook data to NGP's voter file to help find Facebook friends who are registered to vote and are likely supporters of the candidate. That online organizing platform is not intended for use for ad targeting, however.

Obama's campaign and its online ad firm, Bully Pulpit Interactive, are also known for their data-driven online ad targeting prowess.

The negative reactions to ad targeting are much more pronounced when it comes to political ads than product ads, discounts or tailored news. According to Annenberg, 61% said they don't want ads for products or services that are customized to their interests, and 46% said the same of tailored discounts. Sixty-one percent said they do not want news customized to their interests.

More than half (64%) of survey participants also said they'd be less likely to vote for a candidate they support if they determined that the candidate's campaign buys data that helps them target tailored ad messages to different people.

Researchers surveyed approximately 1,500 Internet users in the U.S. age 18 or older. The study was conducted between April 23 and May 6 by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

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